Worth a Look: Geospatial Revolution Project Episode 1 = Absolutely Awesome

Earth Intelligence, Peace Intelligence, Worth A Look
Story and Podcast

We are excited to announce that the first episode of the Geospatial Revolution Project is now available. And, all we can say is that it is absolutely awesome. Geospatial technologies are truly revolutionary, and this episode reminds us that what we do as GIS/GEOINT professionals has (and will continue to) changed the world. In case you are not familiar with the Geospatial Revolution Project it is an integrated public media and outreach initiative about the world of digital mapping and how it is changing the way we think, behave, and interact created by Penn State Public Broadcasting. Check out our exclusive podcast with Stephanie Ayanian, senior producer, who shares her insights about this special project. And, of course, we are featuring Episode 1 in this post. Be sure to check it out!

Tip of the Hat to Matt Langan at LinkedIn.

Engineering4Change

01 Agriculture, 01 Poverty, 02 Infectious Disease, 03 Economy, 05 Energy, 07 Health, 12 Water, Gift Intelligence, International Aid, Peace Intelligence, Technologies
website link

Engineering for Change is an online environment bringing together engineers and other problem solvers with NGOs and local communities to address basic quality of life issues such as access to clean water, electricity and proper sanitation. Also see their Twitter feed

Related:
+ Engineers Without Borders
+ Architecture4Humanity
+ Open Architecture Network
+ Entrepreneurial Design for Extreme Affordability
+ D-Lab @ MIT
+ Wisdom from Paul Polak on How to Design for the Market

Journal: NYPD CTD Under Dave Cohen Lauded for Brains

09 Terrorism, Analysis, Law Enforcement, Methods & Process, Officers Call, Peace Intelligence
Full Story Online

The Terror Translators

By ALAN FEUER

The New York Times, Published: September 17, 2010

EXTRACT:

Mr. Rascoff said the working relationship between the civilian and sworn counterterrorism officials in New York was better than the parallel relationships in the Federal Bureau of Investigation because federal agents, unlike the local detectives, were often as highly educated as the analysts they work with.

“F.B.I. agents sometimes look at their analysts and say, ‘So, basically, we do the same job, but I carry a gun and kick down doors while you sit at your desk all day,’ ” said Mr. Rascoff, who has been working in intelligence since 2003, when he was a consultant to L. Paul Bremer, the special envoy to Iraq.

In the C.I.A., Mr. Rascoff added, the relationship between operatives and analysts is often the chilly one between “an author of cables and a reader of cables.”

In the Police Department, he said, there is an “educational, experiential but not intellectual” gulf that can, paradoxically, bring the sides together.

“While it’s sometimes hard to harness those conflicting energies,” Mr. Rascoff said, “when it succeeds, it succeeds wildly.”

READ EVERY WORD!

Tip of the Hat to Niels Groeneveld at LinkedIn.

Y Combinator Hacker News Community’s Model for Info-Sharing & Potential for Collective Intelligence

03 Economy, 04 Education, 11 Society, Academia, Civil Society, Collective Intelligence, Commerce, Cultural Intelligence, Government, Hacking, Law Enforcement, Media, Military, Mobile, Non-Governmental, Peace Intelligence, Technologies

Hacker News” has a welcome page and guidelines page offering an overview of what the organizers expect from those planning on posting comments and why it's good overall for the community.  I (Jason Liszkiewicz) was impressed with this. Hacker News has a solid number of participants and provides a simple and mature format for exploring and contributing thoughtful feedback, insight and resources.

It has a jobs link (mainly for engineers and programmers) and the “Ask Hacker News” link which enables the community to share information and reply to what is shared. Such a model (deemed an “experiment”) that provides mature and thoughtful information-sharing is something we need more of. Communities inter-linking with communities (or at least over-lapping) to spill over each others insights can be invaluable and potentially priceless.

Example: Ask HN: What do you perceive as worth spending money on?

This simple and useful model is something I hoped would emerge + converge from the SMS/text messaging developers at ChaCha.com (humans online responding to text messaged questions) or somewhere else. Converging multi-community info-sharing online, offline, and through the mobile world on a global scale is an exciting possibility.

The next level to all of this exists in the form of ideas or fragmented applications but it seems not beyond that, yet.

Email earthintelnet|at|gmail.com or post something at this new forum to discuss these ideas. Or, provide some mature and thoughtful feedback at the Hacker News community.

Video: Visions of the Gamepocalypse, Possible Futures, Waking Up, Thinking, and Creating a Better World

04 Education, Augmented Reality, Corporations, Cultural Intelligence, Geospatial, Peace Intelligence, Technologies
See the "Long Short" (short video) on gaming and Jesse Schell's presentation

Jesse Schell: Visions of the Gamepocalypse

Hosted by The Long Now Foundation

This is a provoking and entertaining presentation.
After the short video called “Pixels” prior to the presentation, Jesse Schell starts off with what if life becomes, not Orwellian, but Huxleyan (Brave New World) where pleasure achieved through technology grips the whole lives of citizens. Imagine sensors attached to commercial products from toothbrush to television (and electric tattoos linked to Facebook) collecting data + wi-fi connections uploading behavior data to the Web.  People can earn “points” like in a gaming environment depending on their behavior and habits and these points can be used for coupons, deals, and other corporate profit-pursuing conceptions.

Soon the presentation gets into prediction and if the more one practices at predicting the future, the better one can become.  Other parts of the presentation:

  • The upward trend of mobile gaming application sales versus console gaming systems, and how micro-transactions of money (Zynga, Playdom, Playfish, Bigpoint) in connection with social networking will be like peanut butter + chocolate.
  • Dream states (REM sleep) as un-tapped territory that most likely advertisers will reach first.
  • Virtual money such as “Farm cash,” and World of Warcraft gold was mentioned to attract product attention.
  • A stat was shown of commercial ads on television rising from 13% in 1950 to 36% today.
  • “Battlefield of the 21st century” as how you spend your day and carving up those percentages to target your behaviors

Continue reading “Video: Visions of the Gamepocalypse, Possible Futures, Waking Up, Thinking, and Creating a Better World”

Journal: Cognitive Dissonance in Afghanistan Part II

Cultural Intelligence, IO Multinational, IO Sense-Making, Military, Officers Call, Peace Intelligence
Col Lawrence Sellin: Traitor or Truth-Teller?

Fired colonel calls PowerPoint a crutch

Army Times, By Andrew Tilghman – Staff writer
Posted : Thursday Sep 9, 2010 8:29:12 EDT

Army Reserve Col. Lawrence Sellin has no regrets about publishing a rant about the military’s overreliance on PowerPoint presentations — despite the fact it got him fired from his job at joint command headquarters in Afghanistan.

. . . . . . .

Sellin said his controversial article was the last of several efforts to find something meaningful to do at ISAF headquarters.

. . . . . .

Sellin’s screed highlights a long-simmering controversy inside the military bureaucracy.

Marine Gen. James Mattis, currently chief of U.S. Central Command, told a military conference earlier this year that “PowerPoint makes us stupid.”

And Army Brig. Gen. H.R. McMaster banned PowerPoint presentations as a brigade commander during his successful efforts to secure the northern Iraqi city of Tal Afar in 2005.

Sellin said his complaint is not solely about PowerPoint, the presentation software created in 1987.

“I don’t hate PowerPoint. It’s a useful tool,” he said. “But it can be a crutch as a substitute for thinking. It’s too easy to produce a lot of slides and create volume, not quality. You really think that with a lot of detailed slides that you’re making progress, when you are actually not.”

Continue reading “Journal: Cognitive Dissonance in Afghanistan Part II”

Journal: Army Industrial-Era Network Security + Cyber-Security RECAP (Links to Past Posts)

Hacking, IO Multinational, IO Secrets, IO Sense-Making, Military, Peace Intelligence
Marcus Aurelius Recommends

Army Times article, second below, reports what the beginning of what I expect will be a major decline in functionality of Army computer systems.  While some sort of institutional response to the alleged Wikileaks traitor, Specialist Bradley Manning, is appropriate, I don't think this is it.  This is a simplistic approach, the sort of thing the KGB did and presumably the sort of the SVR continues to do.

By the way, IMHO, 91K classified documents on the Internet is not some sort of an inadvertent security violation.  It's almost certainly one of the national security crimes; I think it's treason. Better to concentrate on the perpetrator — try him, convict him, and then, maybe, violate in some significant ways his Constitutional protection against “cruel and unusual punishment” as a highly visible deterrent against espionage.

NOTE:  Image links to source generally as persistent link not available.

Below the line: PBI comment and cyber-security recap (34).

Continue reading “Journal: Army Industrial-Era Network Security + Cyber-Security RECAP (Links to Past Posts)”